Hezbollah's 'Virtual Entrepreneurs:' How Hezbollah is Using the Internet to Incite Violence in Israel

In recent years, Hezbollah has used social media to recruit Israeli Arabs and West Bank-based Palestinians to attack Israeli targets. A recent innovation in terrorist tactics has given rise to 'virtual entrepreneurs,' which to date have been largely associated with the Islamic State's online recruitment efforts. Hezbollah's virtual planners, similar to those in the Islamic State, use social media to establish contact with potential recruits before transitioning to more encrypted communications platforms, transferring funds, and issuing instructions to form cells, conduct surveillance, and carry out terrorist attacks. Online recruitment presents a low-cost option that offers plausible deniability for Hezbollah. While every virtual plot led by Hezbollah that targeted Israel has been foiled thus far, Israeli authorities spend time and resources disrupting these schemes at the expense of other more pressing threats. By digitally recruiting Palestinians to attack Israel, Hezbollah and its patron Iran are seeking to cultivate a new front against Israel amid rising regional hostilities.
In 2016, Muhammad Zaghloul, a young Palestinian from Tulkarem in the West Bank, allegedly oversaw the formation of a terrorist cell in the West Bank that planned to carry out [...]